


(i don't mind) the taste of blood

by lilevans



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Muggle, California, Drug Use, F/M, Orphans, alcohol use, robbers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 00:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15545232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilevans/pseuds/lilevans
Summary: she steals books from thrift stores. he steals her chips. they get along, most of the time.//jily + robbers au.





	(i don't mind) the taste of blood

**Author's Note:**

> [a playlist is here if wanna listen to it while u read.](https://open.spotify.com/user/phoenixintheashes/playlist/0ZyTMXDPx24NASIhKv8pHs?si=wiv87soTT3mtYcb4HvVPeQplaylist)
> 
> WARNING: blood, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, implied sex. please read at your own discretion.  
> hope you enjoy x

 

**_Warning: SEVERAL HEAVY THEMES.  I don’t necessarily condone any of the behaviour i write about, but the music video that inspired this fic is a masterpiece and it was super fun to write. So_ **

_//_

**PART I: THE RIOT.**

She’s never had it easy. She knows that’s no excuse, and she’s completely aware she can’t play the _orphan_ card every time. Then again, she runs out of ways to explain how fucked up she is. She thinks that the word _orphan,_ stained in blood across a cracked mirror is the perfect way to sum up who she is.

She smokes, perhaps a little too much and coughs every fifth puff. Sometimes she swears she can feel her lungs collapsing. She’s learnt to ignore that feeling.

Sometimes she makes her fingers bleed because she keeps trying to chew her fingernails when they’re have become reduced to stubs. Her mother would probably scold her for that habit. If she had one.

//

He always had it easy. He knew that perfectly well, raised by wealthy, famous parents surrounded by dinner parties and silverware and TV show interviews.

That, and of course, incredibly easy access to drugs and underage drinking.

The _celebrity_ lifestyle was intoxicating, and he spent most days wanting to go a little bit fucking _Dorian Grey,_ even if it meant selling his soul.

His family sent him to rehab twice. _“James, I think you’re addicted to heroin,”_

_“Nah, I’m just addicted to fun.”_

//

Rehab is, of course, where he meets Sirius.

//

Sirius grew up in a family just like James’, except his were much shittier. His parents stuffed him into neckties just a _little_ too tight and learnt how to cover his bruises with makeup, taught him how to smile through it out of spite. Kicked him out because he was sick of being fake.

//

As soon as Sirius turned 21, they ran away from rehab and James emptied his trust fund before they could disown him. The pair bought a bottle of rum to celebrate, and made the barman who served them sit down and have a glass too.

“May I ask why exactly you’re pouring the barman, a stranger, a glass of rum?”

James’ eyes had glinted. “We’re a bit psycho, if you couldn’t tell, mate.”

Remus shrugged and clinked his glass with Sirius’, rum and ice sloshing. “Welcome to the club.”

//

 Pete met them at a party and stuck around for the weed.

//

She feels like she’s floating through life, not really living it. Just surviving, trying to forget the shit she’s been through by staying alive long enough to see tomorrow. Even if there’s probably no point.

All she wanted was a pack of gum, and she doesn’t know why she’s in a thrift shop instead of a gas station, but she ends up looking at the antique books and shoving one in her bra when the shop clerk isn’t looking.

She’s always thought thrift shops were strange places, strewn with books, dust and curious oddities. Why would people give up all of this shit? She knows she sees it differently because she never grew up having the kind of stuff they sell here, but she often wonders about the lives of the people who owned the clothes before her.

She picks up a trench coat with a $20 sign on it, biting her lip. Worth it? Probably not. However, she’d look fucking badass.

James sees her because Sirius dragged him there to see if thrift stores sold bongs.

He doesn’t mean to notice her, but her hair is a flame against the dust. She’s squinting and she looks pissed off at life, until the moment where she sees _Alice in Wonderland._ She opens it, reads the inside covers, and smiles. It’s genuine, but strange and foreign, as if she’s out of practice when it comes to genuine smiles. James decides he likes that smile. She looks around, not noticing him, and shoves it in her bra. The shop clerk is oblivious.

She then saunters to the counter and forks over $20 to the clerk for the trench coat in her hand. She smiles in an alarming manner, a smile full of jagged edges, before throwing on the coat and leaving the shop like a thunderstorm. Sirius shuts James’ jaw and shakes his head.

“Well _fuck,_ ” he mutters.

“Indeed.”

Now, he’ll never see that thunderstorm again.

//

Well, that’s a lie. He sees her in the diner three hours later. She’s hunching over a plate of chips drenched in ketchup, vanilla coke in a glass with a silly straw. Her pack of Cigarettes sits next to the cup. It cost her the last of her cash, she’s bouncing her leg thinking about everything else she could have spent this on, but it’s fine. Really.

He’s only supposed to get liquorice, but he sees her in the booth, in her new (old) trench coat. He’s sort of dumbstruck. So much for _never gonna see her again,_ huh?

She cautiously takes the book out of her bra and opens it, reading the words etched into the cover. It aches, but she can’t stop reading the words _all my love, mom xoxo._

“You should probably be more subtle when you steal next time,” He smirks and nods to the book, sliding into her booth and stealing a chip. She practically growls at him.

“Fuck off.” She pauses for a moment to take a sip of her drink, frowning at him. “Are you following me or something?” She looks on edge as she says this, still bouncing her leg, but she’s not pushing him away just yet. She’s curious about this boy. Hazel eyes, messy hair, scars on the inside of one forearm. A walking intrigue.

“No, just a small town,” He steals another chip, ignoring her slight snarl even though he shouldn’t.

She scoffs. “A thrift store, a gas station, and a diner don’t make a town,”

“True. Still a safer bet to steal from the gas station than it is to steal from the thrift shop though,”

She pulls the bowl of chips away from him and lowers her voice. “Would you mind not telling the entire diner that I’m a thief, please?”

He leans in, so close their noses could touch. Lily wonders how long it’s been since she’s been this close to another human. _If she’s even still human._

“Why shouldn’t I?”

She pushes the chip bowl back towards him.

He shrugs. “Fair enough.”

Her bouncing leg becomes still. She steals a piece of liquorice from the packet he put on the table. He lets her.

//

“Are you just going to follow me home like a puppy?” He asks as he leaves the diner, her in toe.  
“I don’t even know your name,”

“Lily. And you’re a dick,” she says without consequence, hands deep in her pockets, hood up. She shivers in the rusty February air, her feet trembling in her combat boots. He glances down, not surprised to see her ripped stockings and a welting bruise on her left knee.

“James,” he corrects her, pushing his glasses further up his face. She takes them from him.

“Wow, you really are fucking blind,” they’re huge on her face, and James decides he wants to capture this moment. Lily, a girl who he barely knows, red hair under a hood with his glasses, which are way too big for her, green eyes like planets.

“Cheers mate.”

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” She asks as she fumbles, looking for something in her trench coat.

“Uh, my parents host an early morning breakfast show together. It might be from that,”

“Huh. Probably. Do you have a lighter?” She’s pulling the cigarettes out of her pocket with shaky hands, not looking at him. 

“Only if you give me a cig,”

She complies and they light up on the side of the shitty dirt road.

“Where are we going?” she asks after a puff and a cough, giving the glasses back. She inspects her fingernails on her other hand. They’re bleeding again. _God_ she needs some rum… or cocaine. That would also work. She takes another drag.  

He raises a brow and exhales smoke. “You could be an axe murderer for all I know,”

She grins, the same jagged grin he saw her give the shop clerk. “Only on weekends. Right now, I’m bored.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “I live in a shitty house with my mates two blocks away,”

“Cool,”

He looks at her, and thinks about how she ate those chips as if she didn’t expect to eat anything else for days. “You don’t have a home, do you?”

Her gaze hardens. “Why the fuck do you care?” She bristles.

He stares back at her just as hard. “Just do,”

She bites her tongue so hard she tastes metal before responding. “No, I drift, I guess. I got a shitty Camaro I crash in most of the time,”

He glances at her, unsure of how to ask what he’s thinking.

She already knows exactly what he’s thinking and shrugs. “Yeah, I did steal it,”

He shakes his head, and she raises her brows at him incredulously.

“I may be a thief, but you’re obviously an addict,” she looks at his arm.

“I had a fucked up childhood,”

She scoffs at him.

“At least you _had_ a childhood” she scuffs her boots on the gravel.

He doesn’t know what to say. “Everyone’s got shitty stuff,”

He opens the door of his house as it says it, and she flings herself inside the door before he can think otherwise.

Sirius is lying on the couch, trying to kick Remus in the face. Peter is asleep on the floor. There’s a book about Winston Churchill and bong on the coffee table.

Sirius whips his head around, as he’s going to say something to James. He squints as if he’s trying to remember where he knows her. Instead of figuring it out, he says, “Who’s this slut?”

She wipes dust off the coffee table with her index finger and inspects it. “Someone who could cut your dick off in three seconds flat.”

He sits up suddenly and says, “Excuse me?” at the same time Remus says, “I like her.”

James takes a moment to register this scene. The boys and the bong are normal, commonplace, but Lily looks like a big bright stain of colour, out of place but also…belonging.

“Want a hit?” Remus asks her politely, as if it’s tea and not weed. He pushes Sirius off the couch as he does so. 

She smiles and takes the bong from him; cautiously stepping around Peter’s sleeping form as she does so. “Thanks.”

James kicks him awake gently and throws him the liquorice he bought.  

“Thanks mate. Who’s this?” He asks through a mouthful.

Sirius shakes his head. “Keep up, mate.” He says it as if he has the answer, causing Remus to throw a pillow at him.

James shrugs. “Oh, that’s Lily. She steals books from thrift shops and she followed me home,”

“OHHHH!  YOU’RE THE ONE WHO JAMES WOULDN’T STOP MAKING EYES AT EARLIER!” Sirius shouts suddenly, and Remus grimaces. James socks him in the arm, hard.

She only laughs and falls onto the couch next to Sirius and takes another hit of the bong, flashing her scary grin again. Peter looks both terrified and in awe.

“She should follow you home more often,” He remarks.

“Which book?” Remus asks as he gets up to make a cup of coffee.

She pulls it out of its spot in her bra. “Alice in Wonderland,”

Sirius snorts. “Oh, I want some of the shit she was on, man, I’m telling you.”

//

She ends up staying for dinner, which is just a combination the pop tarts and marshmallows that Peter and Sirius ran to the store to get because they had the munchies. They put the Killers on the record player Remus bought and scream the lyrics through each mouthful. After, Remus runs out the back and comes back with a bottle of rum and a small pack of cocaine. Lily gets up and throws her arms around his neck aggressively. He thinks she’s trying to kill him until she sways and starts laughing.

“You have no idea how much I’ve been thinking about rum and coke today,” She sighs as she releases him.

James smirks. “You know, when people usually say that, they mean alcohol and cola, not alcohol and illicit drugs,” He pours five glasses of rum.

“Oh fuck off,” Lily glares at him at him, but she can’t resist breaking into a smile. It sort of aches. She doesn’t remember smiling this much, ever. Sirius starts setting up the coke.

“What is it you do, Lily?” Remus asks conversationally. Something in her snaps. She stops smiling, bristles again, suddenly on edge. It feels like time has stopped moving. The boys look at her.

“I might ask you the same thing,” She grits her teeth. “You seem to have a lot of money hidden up your sleeve,”

Peter sucks in a breath, but doesn’t move.

“Oh, actually, we’re in a band,” Sirius cuts into the silence.

Time starts moving again and Lily smirks.

“Oh yeah? What do you play?”

Sirius snorts the coke and then goes to show her all of the instruments. They’re all shitty and dusty, but a pile of cash from the EP release sits in the corner by the drums.

She’s giggling at the revelation that _James Potter,_ son of Fleamont and Euphemia, New York Breakfast TV Hosts of a show that she never watched, sings in a band. And she’s currently in his living room snorting his coke.

//

She falls asleep on the floor and suddenly looks less angry. It’s four AM and James tentatively throws a blanket over her, scared she’ll wake up and stab him. He saw the shard of glass in her boot, smelt the blood where it had cut into her foot and she’d ignored it. He wonders about her, how she got to be in the middle of Fuck All, California, stealing books from thrift stores. He wonders if she’ll ever tell him.

//

The next morning, the spot where she slept is empty, and James thinks that this time he might _actually_ never see her again. That is, until she drives her shitty car onto their front lawn, throws herself onto their Futon couch, and eats their cereal. They all agree that they have to keep her.

//

**PART II: THE RUIN.**

A month passes and James forgets what life was like before her presence. Sure, she’s kind of deadly, always smelling like blood and cigarettes and somehow, she always gets cocaine dust in her red hair. But then again, she laughs with them, smile like a dagger, and convinces them to start making music again.

“I’m _bored._ I want to hear music. Just… Make it good shit, you know,” She takes a drag.

She’s looking at him, regarding him like he’s a canvas on the wall. Like she’s thinking about how she could reach her arm around his neck, feel his pulse, squeeze. She thinks for a moment, watches him fall to the ground in front of her. She thinks he’s too pretty, hair in his face like that. She thinks he makes her heart beat too quickly and maybe she should just reach out and choke him. Or maybe she should reach out and hold his hand. She takes another drag.

James looks at her through his hair as he strums the guitar. He’s thinking about how she’s strange and unusual and there’s always the smell of smoke and blood. He thinks about the dust on her lips. How he wants to take all the fucked-up-ness and make her _happy._ Maybe. He doesn’t like thinking, there’s too much he doesn’t know.

What he does know, however, is that the room looks a lot brighter now she’s in it, sun in her hair, dust and smoke in the air as she flicks through her book.

“Why do you care about this book so much, Lily?” Peter asks her.

Her eyes glint angrily like a knife blade for a moment, but they soften quickly. James pretends he didn’t notice.

“I like the note on the inside,”

“What does it say?”

She goes quiet for a moment. Her one rule is not to trust anyone. Keep people out, because they’ll leave you. Then again, the boys are still here. Somehow.

She flicks to the front of the book.

“ _Dearest Mary,_

_I hope your birthday is as beautiful as you are. I believe that each life is of wonders, and you, my child, are my favourite wonder in this world. I thank heaven every day for you. I hope that one day you find your wonderland too._

_All my love, mom xoxo_ ”

They all exhale slowly.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Sirius mutters.

“Why does that matter so much?” Peter asks abruptly. Remus kicks him in the shins. If it was anyone else, Lily would have stabbed him or her without question but Pete has a look of childlike curiosity when he asks her. The kind she never had.

“I never had a Mom,”

“Same.” Remus says simply. They smile to each other gently.

James thinks that gentle, sad smile is her real smile. Not the one made of daggers and blood. This smile is one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.

//

Sometimes she reaches up and James can see a small scar across her ribs. He wonders how she got it. He’s always too scared to ask. He knows she can use the shard of glass she keeps in her sock as a knife with no problem.

Even though they all know she could kill them, she still gives them pieces of her, bit by bit. Tells them small details of her life, hiding them with blunt details in quieter moments. In the way when people say things that are important and painful, as if they don’t mean anything at all.

“I learnt how to snort coke when I was eleven because one of the girls in the orphanage was fucking a dealer,” she says, softly, while they smoke weed on a Tuesday.

“The care taker told me no one else would ever give a shit about me and I left the orphanage when I was 16.” She tells them all on a rainy Wednesday at the diner.

Remus looks like she feels, his silly straw matching hers. She gently clasps his hand from across the table, and even though she initiated the contact, she still jumps out of her skin at his touch.

“My mother taught me how to do everything out of spite when I was 14. Maybe its best that you didn’t have one,” Sirius sips a beer.

She glares at him harshly for a moment, and everything is so tense that there’s a moment where everyone might think she might hit him. She thinks about it, imagines stretching across the table and punching him in the face, breaking his nose and letting the blood flow. Then she thinks that maybe she shouldn’t. Because he’s just as fucked up as her, which is new and its own brand of beautiful.

James is gripping her hand under the table because he knows what she’s thinking. He can feel her tensing and he brings her back down the earth. He’s learnt to steady her in a way no one else can.

She relaxes slightly and sips with her silly straw, tapping Sirius’ foot with hers under the table, and he smirks.

“I guess we’ll never know.”

//

They use the shitty diner Wi-Fi to email a couple of record companies some demos, and when none replies, they decide to go to the bar, where all broken dreams go to die.

“We should just go to LA anyway. What have we got to lose?” James’ hands are in his pockets, his gaze hard, determined.

“Uh, how the _fuck_ would we get there?” Pete asks them as the door swings open.

“Lily’s shitbox will never get us to LA,” Sirius replies unhelpfully, and Remus rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be mean to Lily’s car, dickweed,” James says before ordering a round of drinks.

Lily shrugs. “I don’t give a shit, it’s not like I paid for it. Plus, Anyway, I’m sure will Black apologise to it later when he’s high off his fucking head,” she grins devilishly.

“Man, you’re evil,” James and Sirius both seem to say, chuckling at her.

“We could always catch a bus,” Pete says, even though everyone shrugs in distaste.

“Or put some money together and get a van. That way we can take the instruments too.” Lily suggests in between vodka shots.

James likes this idea.

“Sir, you okay with that? Even if it means less cocaine?”

“No heroin for you either, Jim,” Remus reminds him.

Sirius holds up his drink. “Let’s make a fucking record.”

//

They spend the evening at the bar, where they all get very, very drunk.

//

It’s 2am and there’s a man with a bun and bright blue eyes who was watching sports at the bar, and when his friend leaves, he smiles at Lily, who gives him a sarcastic dagger-grin of _if you talk to me, I could kill you. Try me._

James and Sirius are playing some sort of hard-core beer pong, yelling and shouting, Remus and Pete are cheering, and none of them is paying attention.

He wanders over to her and it feels a little hazy but her skin prickles. She feels like the very opposite of alive, her skin itches, she tastes something metallic.

“How you doing tonight, Love?”

“I’m fine, _love,_ ” she takes another shot and sways slightly, and he catches her, steadies her. The way James does when she’s about to do something stupid, the way he steadied her two months ago when she felt like she was falling through life. The way he steadied her by bringing her into his life. The way James should be doing right now. But this is not James, this is a stranger, James feels 1000 miles away. She feels wrong. Everything feels wrong. She circles out of his grip. The boys don’t see.

Her pulse rises and it hurts, her ears hurt. “Are you alright?” He finds another way to grip her shoulders, running his fingers down her exposed arms, she’s shivering and she’s looking for an exit through bleary eyes.

“No, I’m fine, you can leave me alone,” She tries to step away again, but his fingers tighten on her arms, her exposed flesh and the taste of blood is stronger than ever before.

“I don’t think it’s wise for you to leave on your own,” He seems to feign concern, but there’s something poisonous laced within his voice, something that says _leave with me or don’t leave at all._

“I do what I want.” She spits at him. “I’m punk rock,”

She pauses for a moment to laugh at her own joke, as if she’s the funniest person she’s ever know. He doesn’t laugh, instead tightening his grip.

There’s a split second, and she rolls her eyes, feels every movement in her body, alive for the briefest second.

That’s when she socks him across the face.

There’s a numb sort of adrenaline that kicks in and she manages to drag him outside into the alleyway before there can be a commotion. Once there’s no one around, he struggles free from her grip and punches her in the same spot she did him, and then in the ribs. Her entire body is numb, from alcohol, cocaine, and weed. So numb that she can’t really feel much right now, so she proceeds to kick him in the knee and then the crotch. It’s all sluggish and brutish, not like any movie, and that’s how she remembers she’s not hallucinating. She wonders what her mom would be thinking if she could see this. Whoever her mother is. Was.

James looks around after she’s been gone 4 and a half minutes, after he knows he’s losing to Sirius, and it feels like he’s also been kicked in the ribs when he realises she’s gone. He opens the door and his breath mists immediately and he sees her messily attempting to bash a person up. But all her muscles have deteriorated from the drug use and she’s fighting a losing battle. Even if she seems convinced that she’s winning.

He pushes the guy off her and punches him square in the jaw without a moment of hesitation. She’s shocked and then angry, shooting him a venomous glare for interfering. There’s blood running down her nose and jaw and neckline and she limps as she moves. This only makes James punch the guy harder. Sirius comes out and he’s yelling and Remus and Peter are screaming for him to stop because they think he’ll only help beat this guy up. But he drags James off him and there’s more shouting. James is fucking drunk, pulling against Sirius’ grip to fight this guy. Lily tries to stand and looks pissed off.

She picks up an empty bottle and breaks it on the outer brick wall of the bar, the shattering puncturing the air and causing a silence. The guy with the man bun uses this, struggles free and runs while the rest are stuck looking at each other.

“Are you okay?” Pete asks into the silence. He’s not talking to anyone in particular.

“Yeah,” Lily responds. She wipes her nose and tries to ignore the stinging. James fixes the boys a look, a _leave us alone for a moment_ look. Remus tentatively touches Lily’s shoulder, shocked when she doesn’t flinch, Sirius nods at her, and she nods back in thanks. They go back inside, and James leans against the wall, looking at her. His vision is fucked and blurry, and he can’t tell if her hair is in her face or if it’s the blood. There’s a bruise on his rib. He puts his head in his hands, everything spinning, hair haphazardly falling.

“What the _fuck,_ Lil?”

There’s blood in her mouth and the metallic taste finally makes sense. She spits. “I don’t have to explain myself to _you._ ”

She fits as much callousness into the last word as she can. She knows how to make it hurt. Her lip stings, she’s bruised. And fuck, she’s slurring because she’s still drunk.

“No, you don’t.” He agrees.

She looks at him as if no one has ever said that before.

“But if you’re gonna get into fights you know you can’t win, at least tell me why you’re gonna be that fucking stupid. I think you owe me that.”

“What the fuck does it matter, Potter? It’s stupid! I’m a stupid bitch; I’ve always been like this cuz no one has never fucking taught me how to be better. Maybe I’m too far gone.” She pauses to breathe.

“I’m the most fucked up person I’ll ever know, but you make me even more fucked up, you’re a fucking idiot who stole my chips before you knew my name, and you’re just as fucked up as me. And you’re the shittiest person I’ve ever met.”

He raises a brow, breath hitched. “Is that all?”

She spits blood again, clutching the broken bottle. “Not even close. Cuz you and the boys make me feel safe and I’ve never ever felt like this. Which is dangerous as fuck. So fucking… fuck you.”

It’s a swift, jagged motion of alcoholic rage and Lily is choking on her tears, but she reaches forward to stab him with the broken bottle. All she knows how to do is ruin things.

He knows it hits him, he can feel a little blood, pooling on his abdomen. He winces, but he's trying to ignore it. He catches her wrist and she drops the bottle. He presses his bloody fingers to her cheeks. There’s still a trace of cocaine on her nose among the blood, all the blood and the fucked-up-ness of it all.

Then he kisses her. He ignores all the blood even when it’s in his mouth and his hair and maybe his eyes, but nothing else matters. She turns him and he pushes her against the wall, her hands amongst the tangled knots of his hair. She kisses him like nothing else matters.

//`

**PART III: THE RECKONING.**

She thinks she may have been lying in this bed for him for months on end. She thinks she doesn’t mind that one bit. Nothing feels more comfortable than where she is right now, even if she has a hangover, even if there’s a slight knot in her throat. She can feel the scar from where she stabbed him with the bottle, feels him twitch slightly when she touches it. She understands and bites her lip. He has a hand tangled in her hair, and the other hand clasps hers. He kisses her fingers softly.  

“Are you two fucking?” Sirius yells from other side of the door, and Pete is snickering.

“Yes.” Lily shouts back, retreating under the covers and closer to James. He smells like cigarettes and cherries and that’s so much better than the blood that gotten used to.

Sirius ignores this and barges into the room anyway. He observes them for a moment, picks up one of James’s shirts off the floor, sniffs it, and puts it on. He blinks at Lily as she peeks up from under the cover.  

She lifts up the blanket from him in defeat, inviting him into the warmth. He scowls, but jumps into bed next to her.

“Liar.”

//

They live life just like that for a while, and in the mornings, Lily feels the sun in her eyes and thinks that perhaps this is heaven. The heaven she never deserved.

//

A month later, they buy a van off buyswapsell, and it costs a thousand bucks. It’s shitty and makes a terrible spluttering sound whenever you turn it on, and the cracked leather on the seats is beyond repair. Regardless, they love it. James and Lily fuck on the backseat the day after they drive it home.

//

One day while he’s outside having a smoke, Pete looks at the van thoughtfully and after a drag says, “We could rob a gas station with this,”

James, who is standing next to him, plucks the cigarette out of his hands, takes a drag and nods. “Sounds like a solid plan.” After a beat, Sirius adds, “I know a guy who can get us a gun,”

//

Lily is less than thrilled.

“You’re aware of how _fucking stupid_ this is, right?” they’re standing outside of the house, scuffing the concrete with their shitty shoes while they wait for Sirius and Remus to come back with a gun.

James doesn’t understand why it bothers her. He first saw her when she was stealing stuff from a thrift store, she steals packets of gum from the diner and the gas station all the time, and she’s gets into brawls in pubs. She does dangerous things all of the time because she wants to feel something. Why is this suddenly too much? He waits a beat.

“What makes you think that?”

“We’re going to end up in _prison, dickweed._ ”

“It’s not like you haven’t done similar shit before,” James scoffs. She kicks up dirt in the dead grass. She revels in how many dead things are probably around her right this second.

“Oh, yeah?”

“How did you get that car again?” He says it sarcastically, pointing at her Camaro. “Paid for that yourself did you?”

She crosses her arms. Maybe he knows how to make things hurt too. “That’s not fair.” Her voice hardens. “I didn’t have another way out, you know that. But we don’t _need_ to do this! We don’t need the money!”

“We don’t need the drugs either, Lil, and _still_ we fuck ourselves up with them.”

“That’s not a reason!”

He throws his hands up. “We’re fucking _bored, okay!_ We’re fucked up and we’re bored.”

She huffs, reaching for a cigarette out of her pocket. He licks his lips and thinks about how much he wants one. No, he decides he has to keep his front of being pissed off.

Her hands tremble as she tries to light it up, breathing becoming more and more unsteady with each failed attempt. He sighs, temporarily less pissed, because she’s Lily and if he’s mad for more than 5 seconds, it’s too long. She’s biting her lip so hard they might crack open again, and he takes the lighter from her and helps her light it. She mumbles acknowledgment, but she’s still too angry to thank him.

He looks at her, squinting through the sun. The stillness in the air melts. “I know it’s about more than just prison. When are you going to tell me what’s really happening?”

She’s looking at the ground again, and that’s when the van’s spluttering sounds, signalling the boy’s return.

“Never,”

 //

He almost shoots her when they’re messing with the gun the next afternoon.

He’s trying to twirl it in his fingers like they do in the western movies, and Remus did it with an alarming precision, but when James tries, he accidentally flicks safety off and shoots the bong on the coffee table, and into the couch no one uses. The bong shatters and they all duck to miss the shards. James drops the gun and heads straight to cover Lily, who was sitting right next to the bong. He cups her face in panic, making sure she’s alive.

There’s a moment of tense, retrained silence and James knows that he has fucked up. Remus tentatively picks up the gun and flicks the safety switch back on. Lily unravels herself from James harshly, grabs a lighter and slams the door.

“You fucked up, mate.” Sirius’ words cut into the silence. Pete throws a small shard of glass at him.

//

He finds her near the thrift store where they first met. She’s standing in the parking lot, glaring into the sun as it sets and the light hits the shit-box cars, the remains of a dying cigarette between her fingers. She splutters out a cough.

“I- I’m sorry.” He tries, hands in his pockets.

She doesn’t look at him, instead looking past him until she finishes her last drag. With the last ember, she delicately drops it, then stands on it brutally, twisting her heel and grinding it to dust.

“I wouldn’t have really minded if you shot me.” She bursts out suddenly, nothing but blunt. She meets his gaze.

He shifts uncomfortably. “What?”

She doesn’t answer the question.

“I was shot when I was seventeen trying to rob the dollar store.” She says instead.

“That’s what your scar is from,” he murmurs dumbly.

She nods. “Petunia and I got out of the orphanage and we had nothing but each other and a single gun that the girl with the drug dealer boyfriend got for us. Nothing else. We didn’t have any other option but to steal. We’d been stealing small things from the grocery store, but we were barely holding on, you know. So we held up the dollar store with our one gun.”

She exhales shakily, and in the silence, he asks, “What went wrong?”

“They had a gun under the counter, so they just-” She makes a gun gesture. “Shot her. Right in the chest. Then me in the ribs. They missed anything vital, just a lot of blood. The police were already coming, she told me to run, to leave her behind… and I-”

“And you did.” He finishes for her. “Lil, I’m so sorry. How did you get away?”

“They probably killed her. I knew that, but I just… ran. When I was younger, a nurse used to come to the orphanage to make sure we were in good condition or whatever. I went to her, and she looked after my wound, showed me what to do, but I made her promise not to tell anyone. After that, I guess I never really stopped running.”

“Fuck…”

She shakes her hand, but he’s already crashing into her with an embrace, kissing the top of her head.

“So who was Petunia?” He asks, resting his chin atop her messy pile of hair.

“She was my sister. At least, they told us that. I don’t know how true it is. But we were… thick as thieves I guess,” They both chuckle at the cliché, and slowly unwrap from each other.

“Lil, I _promise_ nothing is going to go wrong, okay?”

She looks at him, a discernible expression etched on her face. “You don’t _know_ that.”

His hands slide into hers. She twitches a tiny fraction at the touch of his fingers.

“I do. Because it’s us. You and me. Remus, Sirius, and Peter. We’re going to be fine.”

Her eyes bore into his, and after a moment, her lip juts out, a small smile appearing on her face. “If we end up in prison, I’ll never suck your dick again.”

 

//

The night before they plan to do it, Lily and James lie awake, beads of sweat drip down their temples, hair haphazardly knotty. Their sheets, messily discarded, balled into the corner of the bed. 

“What did you mean when you said you wouldn’t have minded if I shot you?” He asks into the darkness. She drags a sheet over herself and rolls over to face him, brushing her hair to the side.

“I mean I wouldn’t have minded if you shot me.” She bats her lashes. “What else would I have meant?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re you. You’re pretty much the only person who’s made me feel anything, the whole 21 years I’ve been alive. I would rather be fucked over and in pain than go back to being numb.” She moves closer, reach over and draping her arms around him, head on his chest. He rests his chin on her head softly.

His heartbeat thumps in her ears, and her lips twitch up in a smile. He’s real, there’s blood in his veins. It doesn’t just feel like he’s hers, but like he’s a part of her now. He’s crept into her skin and bones and he’s made her body feel like a home.

She sits up, lips quirking into a cheeky grin. Her fingertips run up and down his arms.

“Anyway, I can’t begrudge you for every stupid thing you do. There’s too many to count.”

Her fingers stop at his wrists.

“At least I’ve never gotten cocaine in my hair.”

“But I could still kill you in your sleep,” She strikes back, looking up at him again. With one swift movement, she twists around and pulls herself on top of him, straddling his waist.

“Oh, I know.” He mumbles, before reaching up to capture her lips in a messily, fumbling kiss.

//

She doesn’t touch any food the whole morning, just sits in the lounge room, gazing at the spot where the bong used to sit, fiery determination blazing in gold flecks among the brilliant green of her eyes. She sips at a beer Sirius give her to calm down, wincing with every sip. She’s always hated beer. She drinks it anyway.

Pete puts his hand atop hers reassuringly, eating a liquorice stick as he does so. He offers her one and Lily smiles and takes it.

In the van, she plays with the bandana Remus gave her with one hand while her other hand holds James’.

“I love you, you know.” Her voice quavers, just a little, and she rests her head on his shoulder.

“I know. I love you too.” It’s so simple, matter-of-factly, and neither are quite sure if the other is just saying it because it’s potentially the end of the world. Either way, they mean it.

//

Remus parks the van a little ways off from the gas station and Lily and James both lean again it, smoking a cigarette.

“I like your face,” He murmurs in between drags, looking at her as she puts the bandana around her neck.

“I like yours too,” Her hand grazes across his ragged, unshaven face. There’s a beat where she thinks about the possibilities, each way this could possibly end. None of them well. She just hopes they’ll make it out alive.

With that, he pulls up is own bandana, face now partially covered. She kisses him through the bandana before putting on her own, praying to something that she’ll get to kiss him again.

As they walk, she flicks her hair out, bright red, and a little less stained with blood than before. He carefully gets the gun out of his pocket, and they get to a sprint. Another beat, and he thinks about why he’s doing this, _really._ He decides it’s because he knows he can do anything if it’s with Lily.

The door swings open, he raises his gun, and the world stops.

//

A single shot rings out, then three in quick succession follow, signalling the sound of a disaster.  

//

There’s a pause, then brief moment of yelling, before the boys hear a shot ring out. That’s when they turn the engine on and race to the entrance, and Lily runs out, holding James up while he clutches his stomach, blood seeping out around his fingers while he attempts to maintain pressure. Pete looks like he’s about to be sick now he knows what’s happening.

James clings to her like a lifeline, screaming as they scramble into the van. Sirius is driving, and he puts his foot to the floor and they jerkily accelerate the hell out of there before the police can show up.

“FUCK what do we do?” Pete is yelling nonsense, and Sirius tells him to shut the fuck up so he can drive.

 

“We can’t go home. _We can’t go home._ Where the fuck are we even going?” He asks after a moment.

“Away from here!” Pete exclaims.  In panic, Lily lights a cigarette and shoves it in James’ mouth, and it seems to calm him a little.

All she can think about is what happens if he dies because holy _fuck_ he can’t leave her now she told him she _loved him_ and he’s _her home._ He doesn’t get to leave her now.

“Keep pressure on it, Lily, here, hold him while I bandage him,” Remus moves with a deliberate intent, opening the first aid kit he kept in the van. Just in case.

“This is going to hurt, James.”

James just blinks back tears, instead focusing on Lily. His literal blood is on her hands and she’s somehow gotten it in her hair, because she always does. There’s a bloody handprint on the van door. None of it matters, though, because he’s looking at her like she’s the entire world, blood in her hair and all. 

//

There’s a warm sunset on their backs, and the bus looks worn down and it groans in protest when the driver pulls it to a stop.

“You _sure_ this will get us to LA?” Pete asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Lily’s shitbox could probably get us further,” Sirius doesn’t miss a beat, and subsequently, she hits him in the ribs.

“To Los Angeles?” the bus driver asks, too tired to care what they look like or that James winced when his side grazed the hot exterior of the bus.

“One way ticket,” Lily’s dagger-grin returns as she hands him the tickets, and he motions for them to get on.

“Onto better things?” Remus remarks, falling next to Sirius.

Lily looks out the window, the dry grass and the thrift shop seeming miles away.

“Away from the cops, that’s for sure,” James remarks, and grins when they all tell him to shut the fuck up.

Lily pulls the book out of her bra. “Into Wonderland.”

//  


End file.
